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Black Eyed Ivory (eeLglg or eedgdg)

Combining the Black Eyed Cream gene with any of the three grey genes, (Silver, Light or Dark Grey), will produce Ivory. The colour is comparatively rare, but is relatively easy to breed now that two dominant forms of grey are available. The major difficulty is that if a breeder has an Ivory hamster of unknown ancestory, (for example, from a pet shop), it can be difficult to breed on from reliably until it is ascertained precisely which grey gene is involved. The simplest way to determine this is to mate to a Black Eyed Cream. An Ivory produced by combining the dominant genes Silver Grey or Light Grey with Cream will, when mated to a Cream, produce Ivory young in the litter, (together with some Creams). Since Dark Grey is recessive¸(and so has to be inherited from both parents), mating a Cream to an Ivory derived by combining Black Eyed Cream and Dark Grey will only produce Cream young. To breed Ivory will require one of two strategies, in the absence of an Ivory mate with the same grey gene. In both cases, the animal should be mated to Black Eyed Cream, which is one of the "constituent" genes, and the commonest. Then only the "Grey" gene need be worried about.

For Ivories containing the Silver or Light Grey genes the situation is simple; it is sufficient to breed to Black Eyed Creams. Some of the young will inherit the Grey gene, and will be Ivory, others will not, and will be Black Eyed Cream.

For the Ivories derived using Dark Grey, the youngsters from an Ivory - Cream mating will be Creams, carrying Dark Grey. Mating one of these back to it's Ivory parent will produce a litter of roughly half Ivories and half Black Eyed Creams. Alternatively, mating brother to sister will produce roughly three quarters Black Eyed Creams and one quarter Ivories.

NHC Standard